Waiting
by Ruphira
Summary: You reach out and try to recapture his attention because you miss him; you sit back and stubbornly wait for him to miss you. But all the while you wonder if you ever truly had a claim on that wandering heart of his. -A small tale of love, and some doubt-


**A/N: I have no clue where this came from...well, I kinda do. But I sort of thought of it and wrote it all up in a whirl, so...yeah. xD Also, my first dabbling in this pair. I like it more than I thought I did :3 Hope you enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harvest Moon**

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It was a balmy summer night, heavy in its humidity; each breath felt like a lungful of soup. A faint breeze rustled lazily around the hem of her skirt as she sat, knees drawn to her chest, on the sidewalk outside the farm, as if the heat robbed even the wind of its motivation to move much.

She let her eyelids drift closed and rested her forehead against her knees. This was the kind of night he would revel in, if he were here.

It was a balmy summer night, clear of sky—but her eyes and heart were cloudy. Popuri sighed soup into her dress and rubbed her welling eyes against its soft fabric. Where _was _he?

Didn't he know it was Wednesday?

Didn't he know it was summer?

Didn't he know what he meant to her? That she missed him?

Didn't he know anything at all?

Slowly, she raised her eyes to glance at the mailbox sitting across the sidewalk inside the gate of the poultry farm. She stared hard at the little red flag, willing it to suddenly remember that it had a letter for her, and to leap up to salute her.

It didn't. The pinkette turned her head to rest her cheek on the tops of her knees, knowing it was only a foolish, girlish hope. Kai's letter wasn't going to materialize into the mailbox, no matter how many times she whirled her head around to check, hoping to catch it off-guard.

It was a simple fact: he hadn't written to her. For the fourth week in a row.

Probably he didn't care about her anymore. It wasn't as though she was anyone exciting, she reasoned; she was only a simple farm girl from a simple little farming town with dreams wider and wilder than the sea. Meanwhile, _he _was a worldly, dashing, tanned beach boy with a gleaming lopsided grin and mischievous eyes—he could have any girl he wanted, she was fairly sure. Any girl more interesting and exciting than little homespun Popuri, the chicken girl of Mineral Town. Mineral Town probably wasn't even on any map anywhere in the world—except for the one at Rose Square, of course, but that didn't count…

She could see him reclining in a hazy, late-night club in some flashy city with a beautiful blonde, her face a mask of makeup. She could imagine the conversation; the blonde's coy, flirty grin as she inched closer to him on the leather loveseat: _"I hear you're a rugged traveler, beach boy. That's hot. Where are you from?" "Mineral Town," _he would reply, with a dismissive wave of his rough, brown hand, as if it was hardly worth mentioning and he was eager to move onto greater topics. The blonde would frown in confusion, blink her captivating, mascara-laden eyes, ask, _"Mineral Town? Wherever in the world is that? Do you have computers there?"_

Popuri's shoulders sank. They _didn't _have computers here. She only knew of the bizarre things from tales of…well, Kai's adventuring into the great unknown that was the World.

And _oh, _how she wanted to go with him someday! She pressed her face into an arm and let a few tears fall. He knew it, she knew it. How many times had she poured out her heart to him in her letters? How many times had she told him things she'd never told anybody else?

He was the only one who ever asked how _she _was. _How are you, Popuri? _It seemed like a small thing, but it meant a lot to her. Everybody else was constantly inquiring after her mother, the poor sweet dear, and her stressed-out, overworked brother. Not that she didn't appreciate their concern—really, she did—but everybody seemed to think she was…some sort of…

…Airhead, or something. Like she was just this patient, smiling, pink-haired girl without a thought in her head or a worry to wrinkle her brow who would always be around to laugh at the appropriate times. Like she couldn't feel the strain of her broken family, like she didn't have dreams of her own—when truthfully, maybe she was the strongest one of all. Nobody had ever seen her cry.

But Kai knew.

Kai knew about the times she'd snuck out early in the morning and done her brother's work for him, when nobody thought she knew how to take care of the farm. Kai knew about her mother's fits in the night, fits that Lillia never remembered in the morning and Popuri would never bring up. He knew about her nightmares, about the things she'd sold to Zack to make a little extra money, about the bargains she'd made with Elli and Dr. Trent concerning her mother's medicine. About her fear of losing the rest of her family.

But mostly, he knew about her restlessness. He knew she wanted to travel, find adventure, swap her trademark red skirt for a pair of khaki shorts and climb a mountain to watch the sunrise from its peak. Kai knew that Popuri loved her family to pieces, but she didn't want to spend the rest of her life sitting in her room while her brother ran the farm. Rick would never see her as anything but his delicate little sister.

She thought Kai had maybe seen her as something more. Since they'd been teenagers, they'd been exchanging letters on a weekly basis, and she never looked forward to anything more than a little white envelope waiting in her mailbox on a Wednesday morning. (Except for maybe one day her father walking down the street, coming home, but let's face it—Kai's letters were more reliable.) Every so often, there would be a little hiccup in the regularity; the letter would be a day late or he'd miss a week, but there was always a valid reason and Popuri had never been worried. Well, maybe a little. But when the next letter would arrive shortly afterward, she was calmed. They were her vice, her outlet—and slowly she fell in love with the beach boy.

And it was probably the stupidest thing she'd ever done.

A sigh drew out of the pinkette as she stretched her arms behind her and settled her hands into the grass, reclining back to stare at the sky. Why was he ignoring her? Didn't he like her anymore? What had changed?

She yearned achingly for the letters' old regularity, like clockwork, for his spirited writing and ink-splattered sentences and crumpled pages from when he'd written from a bus or a helicopter or a camel—well, okay, maybe never a camel. She yearned for his teasing comments and three-page-long letters, for his confessions of missing her, for his pledges to someday bring her wherever it was that he happened to be. He'd made a lot of promises, yet he could drop her like a rock.

He was her best friend, she was in love with him, he was supposed to be here, it was summer—she needed him. She'd noticed his letters getting shorter and quicker, but she never expected them to stop at all, and she'd made excuses for him until the third week. When a month had passed and she hadn't heard from him, Popuri became convinced that the problem was on her end.

Namely, _she _was the problem_. _Kai had bored of her. Something had changed—not that she could blame him.

She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back in the grass, closing her eyes again. It was nice to get a little Popuri-time sometimes, time to compose herself before going back inside and smiling at her mother and Rick again, like they expected. _Fine_, she told herself. _I don't need Kai anyway. _

Her mother always said to never fall for a wanderlust. Popuri had to acknowledge with a wry smile that…well, Lillia would know all about that, wouldn't she?

.:.:::.:.

A year came and passed, in a smudge of unbearable sameness, like the year before and, Popuri was sure, the year to come. Lillia was still sick, Rick was still grumpy, her father was still gone, and she was still stupidly in love with Kai.

It was another balmy summer night, not unlike the night before, and if Popuri knew anything about Mineral Town—which she did—it would be a whole lot like the next night, too. There was a pattern emerging here. A _dull _pattern.

Popuri no longer checked the mailbox for the letter that would never appear; at least, she wouldn't admit she did. Maybe her gaze still lingered a little longer on the mailbox Wednesday mornings than her mother's or brother's did. But all the hopes, dreams, memories of walks on the beach and whispered late-night secrets had been crammed into a box and buried in a shallow grave in the back of her mind—a grave she seldom allowed herself to visit.

Kai had never come that year, and as the next summer drew to a close, she knew he wouldn't come this year, either. She'd sent him another letter sometime last Fall and never heard back from him; she could only conclude that this chapter of his life had abruptly ended (Popuri included).

She had long ago decided that she didn't need him, anyway. She got along just fine without his letters and visits (although she crammed those into a box and stuffed it at the back of her bookshelf), and Mineral Town didn't need his stupid little beach house, and who cared if he was out having fun with more interesting girls and seeing the sights of the world? Who cared if his former best friend hadn't heard from him in over a year? No pink-haired, honest-eyed farm girl was pining for him in Mineral Town, that was for sure.

"Hey, Poppy."

Popuri gave a start of surprise and turned from where she'd been staring out at the darkened water. She saw her brother's silhouette approaching her, illuminated from behind by the softly glowing lamps of Rose Square. Immediately she threw a smile together and slapped it on her face. "Hi, Rick! What're you doing out here? Is Mom okay?"

Shadows played across his cheeks as he smiled. "Yeah, everything's fine. Thomas just came by with a delivery for you—said he forgot to deliver it this morning. Thought you'd like to have it right away." The honey-blond held out a slightly lumpy white envelope to his sister, the return address illegible in the darkness.

"Oh," Popuri replied nonchalantly, and stubbornly ignored the thud of her heart. She took the small parcel from her brother and held it to her chest, not allowing her imagination to run away with her as it often had when she was younger. "Thanks, Ricky! I'll be home in a few minutes."

"Uhh…alright." Her brother rubbed the back of his neck and started back towards the town, pausing only once to glance back at her.

The pinkette waited until her brother was gone to tear eagerly into the package, burningly curious. A thin, heavily creased page fluttered out and landed in the sand, followed by the _whump _of a slightly heavier parcel. She knelt in the sand and brought the paper to her eyes, squinted to read it—raced off to find a suitable streetlamp.

_Dear Popuri,_

_Don't think I forgot for a minute about you. I never did. Would you believe that the whole adventure I just had was over you?_

_No?_

_Okay, well, maybe the stuff I attached will help with that. Don't freak either, Poppy. I can understand if you're mad, but believe me! I HAVE A DARN GOOD STORY FOR YOU!_

_But you have to come here to hear it! Yeah, come here. Don't chicken out, chicken girl, you're an adult now and I know you're ready for this. You were born ready for this. I gotta see you! It's been too long, and you won't believe all the things I'm gonna tell you and show you. It's gonna be great!_

_I'm sorry that you probably hated me, but you gotta understand one teensy-tiny-kind-of-important point: __I love you._

_And if you can't read those words it's because I wrung and nearly ripped this freakin' page so bad in trying to talk myself out of sending it. But I mean it! I'll write it again, I LOVE YOU. I have for the longest time, only I couldn't tell you. Don't tell anyone but I'm actually the biggest wimp ever when it comes to you._

_ So take what I sent you. Think about it. Please? We'll talk when you get here, I have to send this quick. My address is on the back side of this page. And I'm sorry, I can't say it enough, and I hope once you hear me out you'll understand and maybe even forgive me._

_Come take over the world with me! I think we could if we tried. I'll be waiting for you._

_LOVE LOVE LOVE (there I wrote it 3 more times, I'm getting good at this!),_

_KAI_

Inside the enclosed parcel were two tickets—one for a ferry, one for a train—and a Blue Feather.

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**A/N: I was yearning for someone's happy ending.**

**Thanks for reading! I wanted to leave what Kai's adventures were up to your imagination (although at one point, he was hunting magical blue birds for Poppy!) as well as her final decision, but you can probably guess what that was. **

**Hope you liked, please drop off a review as you go, if you don't mind :) Have a great day!**


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